Rock Band

CHICAGO – Harmonix and MTV Games took something of a surprising turn after the massive success of last year’s best music game, “The Beatles: Rock Band,” by choosing the follow-up band from a very different arena of radio rock and announcing “Green Day: Rock Band.” With dozens of bands on player’s wish lists of who they would love to get the “Beatles Treatment,” many were surprised that Green Day was chosen as the follow-up group.

CHICAGO – What better way to begin the decade than with full albums from The Beatles now available for the best music-based title of the year? Fans of the great “The Beatles: Rock Band” can now download “Abbey Road,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and “Rubber Soul,” and make this amazing game even more fulfilling.

CHICAGO – No one can accuse Activision and Neversoft of allowing their music game franchise to get stale. In fact, some might argue that they have flooded the market with too many similar products including “Guitar Hero: Metallica,” “Guitar Hero: Smash Hits,” “Guitar Hero 5,” “DJ Hero,” and, now, “Band Hero” in just this year alone (with “Guitar Hero: Van Halen” dropping before Christmas as well).

CHICAGO – Perhaps you’ve seen the clever commercials for “Guitar Hero 5,” in which a dozen or so hot women dance around with plastic guitars and Hugh Hefner extols the virtues of “variety”? There has arguably never been more truth in advertising. Like a roomful of Playboy Playmates, “Guitar Hero 5” gives fans all the variety they could ask for, but truly falling in love with any individual part of the title is a little more difficult.

CHICAGO – “The Beatles: Rock Band” is easily the most fulfilling music gaming experience to date. As someone who has played all of the “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” releases so far, I can tell you from experience that most of these titles are easy to pick up and put down without a concrete narrative to drive a player from beginning to end.

CHICAGO – A number of videos have been released for one of the most anticipated games of the year, the addictive-looking “The Beatles: Rock Band” and we just had to share.

Video Game Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – If you’re like most people who own a television, you’ve probably seen “American Idol” at least once in its near-decade of ratings dominance and thought that you could do better than the pop star wannabe on the stage. Now you can try and achieve “AI” dominance on your own with “Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2”. Practice your Mariah Carey note runs.

CHICAGO – Morgan Spurlock wants to change the world. The creator and filmmaker who took on fast-food giant McDonald’s in his first film (“Super Size Me”) is now taking on the current global war on terror and the image of the most wanted terrorist in his new film “Where in World is Osama Bin Laden?”